Ideological and artistic originality of D.I.’s comedy
The poster itself explains the characters. P. A. Vyazemsky about the comedy “The Minor” ... A truly social comedy. N.V. Gogop about the comedy “The Minor” The first appearance of the comedy “The Minor” on the theater stage in 1872 caused, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, “throwing wallets” - the audience threw wallets filled with ducats onto the stage, such was their admiration for what they saw. Before D.I. Fonvizin, the public knew almost no Russian comedy. In the first public theater, organized by Peter I, Moliere's plays were staged, and the emergence of Russian comedy is associated with the name of A.P. Sumarokova. “The property of comedy is to rule the temper with mockery” - Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin embodied these words of A.P. Sumarokov in his plays. What caused such a strong reaction from the viewer? The liveliness of the characters, especially the negative ones, their figurative speech, the author's humor, so close to the folk one, the theme of the play is a satire on the principles of life and education of the sons of landowners, denunciation of serfdom. Fonvizin departs from one of the golden rules of classical comedy: while observing the unity of place and time, he omits the unity of action. There is virtually no plot development in the play; it consists of conversations between negative and positive characters. This is the influence of the author’s contemporary European comedy; here he goes further than Sumarokov. “French comedy is absolutely good... There are great actors in comedy... when you look at them, you, of course, forget that they are playing a comedy, but it seems that you are seeing a straight story,” Fonvizin writes to his sister while traveling around France. But Fonvizin can in no way be called an imitator. His plays are filled with a truly Russian spirit, written in a truly Russian language. It was from “The Minor” that I. A. Krylov’s fable “Trishkin Kaftan” grew, it was from the speeches of the characters in the play that the aphorisms “mother’s son”, “I don’t want to study, I want to get married”, “fearing the abyss of wisdom” came out... main idea the play is to show the fruits of bad education or even its absence, and it grows into a frightening picture of wild landowner evil. Contrasting “evil characters” taken from reality, presenting them in a funny way, Fonvizin puts the author’s comments into the mouths of positive heroes, unusually virtuous people. As if not hoping that the reader himself will figure out who is bad and what is bad, the writer main role allocates to positive heroes. “The truth is that Starodum, Milon, Pravdin, Sophia are not so much living faces as moralistic dummies; but their actual originals were no more alive than their dramatic photographs... They were walking, but still lifeless schemes of a new good morality... Time, intensification and experiments were needed to awaken organic life in these still lifeless cultural preparations,” the historian wrote about the comedy V. O. Klyuchevsky. Negative characters appear completely alive before the viewer. And this is the main artistic merit of the play, Fonvizin’s luck. Like the positive characters, the negative ones have telling names, and the surname “Skotinin” grows to a full name artistic image . In the very first act, Skotinin is naively surprised by his special love for pigs: “I love pigs, sister; and in our neighborhood there are such large pigs that there is not a single one of them that, standing on its hind legs, would not be taller than each of us by a whole head.” The author's ridicule is all the stronger because it is put into the mouth of the hero at whom we laugh. It turns out that love for pigs is a family trait. “Prostakov. It’s a strange thing, brother, how family can resemble family! Our Mitrofanushka is just like our uncle - and he is as big a hunter as you are. When I was still three years old, when I saw a pig, I used to tremble with joy. . Skotinin. This is truly a curiosity! Well, brother, let Mitrofan love pigs because he is my nephew. There is some similarity here: why am I so addicted to pigs? Prostakov. And there is some similarity here. That’s how I reason.” The author plays out the same motive in the remarks of other characters. In the fourth act, in response to Skotinin’s words that his family is “great and ancient,” Pravdin ironically remarks: “This way you will convince us that he is older than Adam.” Unsuspecting Skotinin falls into a trap, readily confirming this: “What do you think? At least a few...", and Starodum interrupts him: "That is, your ancestor was created even on the sixth day, but a little earlier than Adam." Starodum directly refers to the Bible - on the sixth day, God created first animals, then humans. The comparison of caring for pigs with caring for a wife, coming from the same mouth of Skotinin, evokes Milon’s indignant remark: “What a bestial comparison!” Kuteikin, a cunning churchman, puts the author’s description into the mouth of Mitrofanushka himself, forcing him to read from the book of hours: “I am cattle, not man, a reproach of men.” The representatives of the Skotinin family themselves speak with comical simplicity about their “bestial” nature. “Prostakova. After all, I am the Skotinins’ father. The deceased father married the deceased mother; she was nicknamed Priplodin. They had eighteen of us children...” Skotinin speaks about his sister in the same terms as about his “cute pigs”: “To be honest, there is only one litter; look how she squealed..." Prostakova herself likens her love for her son to the affection of a dog for her puppies, and says about herself: “I, brother, will not bark with you,” “Oh, I am a dog’s daughter! What have I done!". Another special feature of the play “The Minor” is that each of the characters speaks their own language. This was appreciated by Fonvizin’s contemporaries: “everyone differs in their character with their sayings.” The speech of the retired soldier Tsyfirkin is filled with military terms, the speech of Kuteikin is built on Church Slavonic phrases, the speech of Vralman, a Russian German, obsequious with his masters and arrogant with his servants, is filled with aptly captured features of pronunciation. The vivid typicality of the play's heroes - Prostakov, Mitrofanushka, Skotinin - goes far beyond its boundaries in time and space. And in A. S. Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin”, and in M. Yu. Lermontov in “Tambov Treasury”, and in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Tashkent Gentlemen” we find references to them, still alive and carrying within themselves the essence of serf-owners, so talentedly revealed by Fonvizin.
P. A. Vyazemsky, From the book “Fonvizin”
In the comedy “The Minor,” the author already had a most important goal: the disastrous fruits of ignorance, bad upbringing and abuses of domestic power were exposed by him with a bold hand and painted with the most hateful colors... In “The Minor” he no longer jokes, does not laugh, but is indignant at the vice and stigmatizes him without mercy: even if he makes the audience laugh with the picture of abuses and tomfoolery brought out, then even then the laughter he inspires does not distract from deeper and more regrettable impressions...
The ignorance in which Mitrofanushka grew up, and the examples at home should have prepared in him a monster, like his mother, Prostakova... All the scenes in which Prostakova appears are full of life and fidelity, because her character is sustained to the end with unflagging art, with unchanging truth. A mixture of arrogance and baseness, cowardice and malice, vile inhumanity towards everyone and tenderness, equally vile, towards her son, with all that ignorance, from which, like from a muddy source, all these properties flow, coordinated in her character by a sharp-witted and observant painter.
The success of the comedy "Minor" was decisive. Its moral action is undeniable. Some of the names characters became common nouns and are still used in popular circulation. There is so much reality in this comedy that provincial legends still name several persons who allegedly served as the author’s originals.
N.V. Gogol, From the article “What, finally, is the essence of Russian poetry and what is its peculiarity”
Fonvizin's comedy amazes the brutal brutality of man, which stems from a long, insensitive, unshakable stagnation in the remote corners and backwaters of Russia. She exhibited such a terribly bark of coarseness that you could hardly recognize a Russian person in her. Who can recognize anything Russian in this evil creature, full of tyranny, such as Prostakova, the tormentor of peasants, husband and everything except her son... This insane love for her brainchild is our strong Russian love, which in a person who has lost his dignity was expressed in such a perverted form, in such a wonderful combination with tyranny, so that the more she loves her child, the more she hates everything that is not her child. Then Skotinin’s character is a different type of coarseness. His clumsy nature, having not received any strong and violent passions, turned into some kind of calmer, artistic love of its kind for cattle, instead of man: pigs became for him the same thing as an art gallery for an art lover. Then Prostakova’s husband - an unfortunate, murdered creature, in whom even those weak forces that were holding on were beaten down by his wife’s prodding - a complete dulling of everything! Finally, Mitrofan himself, who, having nothing evil in his nature, having no desire to cause misfortune to anyone, becomes insensitively, with the help of pleasing and self-indulgence, a tyrant of everyone, and most of all of those who love him most, that is, his mother and nannies, so that insulting them had already become a pleasure for him.
V. O. Klyuchevsky, From the article “Minor” by Fonvizin (Experience of historical explanation of an educational play)
In the comedy there is a group of figures led by Uncle Starodum. They stand out from the comic staff of the play: these are noble and enlightened reasoners, academicians of virtue. They are not so much the characters in the drama as its moral setting: they are placed near the characters in order to sharpen their dark faces with their light contrast... Starodum, Milon, Pravdin, Sophia... appeared as walking, but still lifeless, schemes of a new, good morality, which they put on themselves like a mask. Time, effort and experiments were needed to awaken organic life in these still dead cultural preparations...
“The Minor” is a comedy not of faces, but of situations. Her faces are comical, but not funny, comical as roles, but not at all funny as people. They can amuse you when you see them on stage, but they are disturbing and upsetting when you meet them outside the theater, at home or in society.
Yes, Mrs. Prostakova is a master at interpreting decrees. She wanted to say that the law justifies her lawlessness. She said nonsense, and this nonsense is the whole point of “The Minor”; without it, it would have been a comedy of nonsense... The decree on the freedom of the nobility was given so that the nobleman was free to flog his servants whenever he wanted...
Mitrofan is a synonym for a stupid ignoramus and his mother’s favorite. The underage Fonvizin is a caricature, but not so much a stage caricature as an everyday one: his upbringing disfigured him more than the comedy made him laugh.
The immortal comedy by D. I. Fonvizin “The Minor” was and remains one of the most relevant works of Russian classics. The breadth of views of the writer, his deep convictions about the benefits of education and enlightenment, were reflected in the creation of this brilliant work. We invite you to familiarize yourself with brief analysis works according to plan. This material can be used for work in a literature lesson in 8th grade, to prepare for the Unified State Exam.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1782
History of creation– The writer’s idea for a comedy arose after returning from abroad, under the influence of the educational views of a foreign country.
Subject– The main theme of “Minor” is enlightenment and education, educating a new generation in the spirit of new trends of the times and political changes.
Composition- the comedy is built according to all the rules of the genre, three components are observed in it - the unity of action, place and time. Consists of five actions.
Genre– The play is a comedy, a bright and lively narrative that does not contain tragic episodes.
History of creation
In “The Minor,” the analysis of the work involves revealing the theme, the main idea of the comedy, its essence and idea.
First, let's define the meaning of the name. In the eighteenth century, the word “minor” meant a person who did not have an education document. Such a person was not accepted into the service and was not allowed to marry.
Fonvizin lived in France for more than a year, delving deeply into its educational doctrines. He was occupied with all spheres of the country's social life, he delved into philosophy and jurisprudence. The writer paid much attention to theatrical productions, in particular comedies.
When the writer returned to Russia, he came up with a plan for the comedy “Unorosl”, where the characters would receive meaningful surnames in order to more deeply express the meaning of the comedy. Work on the history of creation took the writer almost three years; it began in 1778, and the final year of writing was 1782.
Subject
Initially main theme comedy the theme of upbringing and education of the new generation was assumed; later, the problems of “Undergrowth” included socio-political problems that directly related to the decree of Peter the Great banning the service and marriage of noblemen – undergrowth.
The Prostakov family, which has the undergrown Mitrofanushka, has deep noble roots. In the first place for such Prostakovs is pride in their noble class, and they do not accept anything new and progressive. They do not need education at all, because serfdom They haven’t canceled it yet, and there is someone to work for them. Above all, for the Prostakovs, material well-being, greed and greed turn a blind eye to their son’s education, power and wealth are more important.
The family is the example on which a person grows and is educated. Mitrofanushka fully reflects the behavior and lifestyle of her despotic mother, but Mrs. Prostakova does not understand that she is the example for her son, and wonders why he does not show her due respect.
Revealing comedy problems, intrafamily conflict Prostakov, we come to the conclusion that everything depends on a person’s upbringing. A person’s attitude towards strangers around him, his decency and honesty depend only on a decent upbringing in the family. What the writer’s comedy teaches is education, respect for one’s neighbor, good manners and prudence.
Composition
The masterfully executed features of the composition allow you to become familiar with the main characters at the very beginning of the play. Already at the end of the first act the plot begins. Pravdin and Sophia immediately appear in the comedy. There is intrigue in the comedy - Sophia's rich dowry, which they learn about from Starodum's story, and the fight for her hand flares up.
In the next two acts, events develop rapidly, tension grows, the peak of which occurs in the fourth act, in which Prostakova comes up with the idea of kidnapping Sophia and forcefully marrying her to a minor.
Gradually, the development of the action begins to decline, and in the fifth act the comedy comes to a denouement. It becomes known about the unsuccessful abduction of Sophia. Pravdin accuses the Prostakovs of evil intentions and threatens punishment.
A paper arrives about the arrest of the Prostakovs' property, Sophia and Milon are about to leave, and Mitrofanushka is forced to join the soldiers.
Using such in your comedy artistic media as speaking surnames and names, the author gives a moral assessment to the characters, which does not raise any doubts about its justice. This is general characteristics comedies.
Main characters
Genre
Fonvizin's play is built according to the laws of classicism. Events take place during the day in one place. The comedic nature of the play is clearly expressed through sharp satire, mercilessly ridiculing the vices of society. The play also contains funny motifs, permeated with humor, and there are also sad ones, in which the landowner arrogantly mocks her serfs.
The writer was an ardent supporter of education; he understood that only comprehensive education and proper upbringing can help a person grow into a highly moral person and become a worthy citizen of his homeland. The institution of the family, where the foundations of human behavior are laid, should play a huge role in this.
Critics were enthusiastic about the comedy “The Minor,” calling it the pinnacle of Russian drama in the 18th century. All critics wrote that Fonvizin, with maximum accuracy and straightforwardness, described typical images and characteristics of society, which look caricatured and grotesque, but in fact, are simply taken from life and described from life. And in modern world the comedy remains relevant: now in society there is also a large number of “Mitrofanushki”, for whom the meaning of life lies in material wealth, and education is given a minimal place.
The originality of D. I. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” Fonvizin executed in his comedies the wild ignorance of the old generation and the rough gloss of the superficial and external European half-education of the new generations. The comedy “The Minor” was written by D. I. Fonvizin in 1782 and has not yet left the stage. It is one of the author's best comedies. M. Gorky wrote: “In “Minor” the corrupting significance of serfdom and its influence on the nobility, spiritually ruined, degenerated and corrupted precisely by the slavery of the peasantry, was brought to light and onto the stage for the first time.”
All the heroes of Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor” are conventionally divided into positive and negative. The negative ones include the Prostakov family. Moral and positive people are represented by Pravdin, Starodum, Sophia and Milon.
Some literary critics believed that goodies“Undergrowth” is too ideal, that in reality such people did not exist and they were simply invented by the author. However, documents and letters from the 18th century confirm the existence real prototypes heroes of the Fonvizin comedy. And about negative characters such as the Prostakovs and Skotinins, we can say with confidence that, despite the unconditional generalization, they were often found among the Russian provincial nobility of that time. There are two conflicts in the work. The main one is love, since it is he who develops the action of the comedy. It involves Sophia, Mitrofanushka, Milon and Skotinin. The characters have different attitudes to issues of love, family, and marriage. Starodum wants to see Sophia married to a worthy man, wishes her mutual love. Prostakova wants to marry Mitrofan profitably and rake in Sophia’s money. Mitrofan's motto: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married.” This phrase from the comedy “The Minor” has become a catchphrase. Overgrown people who don’t want to do anything, don’t want to study and only dream of pleasure are called Mitrof-1 nushki.
Another conflict of comedy is socio-political. It touches on very important issues of upbringing and education, morality. If Starodum believes that education comes from the family and the main thing in a person is honesty and good behavior, then Prostakova is convinced that it is more important that the child is fed, clothed and lives for his own pleasure. The comedy "The Minor" is written in the traditions of Russian classicism. It observes almost all the main features of classicism as literary direction. There is also a strict division of heroes into positive and negative, the use of speaking surnames and the application of the rule of three unities (unity of place, time and action). The unity of the place is respected, since the entire action of the comedy takes place in the village of the Prostakovs. Since it lasts for 24 hours, the unity of time is maintained. However, the presence of two conflicts in a comedy violates the unity of action.
Unlike Western European, in Russian classicism there is a connection with Russian folklore, civil patriotism and satirical orientation. All this takes place in Nedorosl. The satirical slant of the comedy leaves no one in doubt. Proverbs and sayings, often found in the text of the comedy, make it a truly folk comedy (“Golden caftan, but a leaden head”, “The courage of the heart is proven in the hour of battle”, “Wealth is of no help to a foolish son”, “He who ranks not according to money, and in the nobility not according to ranks"), Pushkin called “The Minor” “the only monument of folk satire.” She is imbued with the spirit of civic patriotism, since her goal is to educate a citizen of her fatherland. One of the main advantages of comedy is its language. To create the characters of his heroes, Fonvizin uses speech characteristics. The vocabulary of Skotinin and Mitrofan is significantly limited. Sophia, Pravdin and Starodum speak correctly and very convincingly. Their speech is somewhat schematic and seems to be contained within strict boundaries.
Fonvizin’s negative characters, in my opinion, turned out to be more lively. They speak simple colloquial language, which sometimes even contains swear words. Prostakova's language is no different from the language of serfs; her speech contains many rude words and common expressions. In his speech, Tsyfirkin uses expressions that were used in military life, and Vralman speaks in broken Russian. In modern Fonvizin society, admiration for foreign countries and contempt for one’s Russian reigned. The education of the nobles was much better. Often the younger generation found itself in the hands of ignorant foreigners who, apart from backward views on science and bad qualities, could not instill anything in their charges. Well, what could the German coachman Vralman teach Mitrofanushka? What kind of knowledge could an over-aged child acquire to become an officer or official? In “The Minor,” Fonvizin expressed his protest against the Skotinins and Prostakovs and showed how young people cannot be educated, how spoiled they can grow up in an environment corrupted by the landowners’ power, obsequiously bowing to foreign culture. The comedy is instructive in nature and has great educational value. It makes you think about moral ideals, attitudes towards family, love for your fatherland, and raises questions of education and landowner tyranny.
“Nedorosl” is the first socio-political comedy on the Russian stage.
The artistic originality of "The Minor" is determined by the fact that the play combines the features of classicism and realism. Formally, Fonvizin remained within the framework of classicism: observance of the unity of place, time and action, the conventional division of characters into positive and negative, schematism in the depiction of positive ones, “speaking names”, features of reasoning in the image of Starodum, and so on. But, at the same time, he took a certain step towards realism. This is manifested in the accuracy of the reproduction of the provincial noble type, social relations in the fortress village, the accuracy of the recreation of typical features negative characters, life-like authenticity of images. For the first time in the history of Russian drama, the love affair was relegated to the background and acquired secondary importance.
Fonvizin's comedy is a new phenomenon, because it is written on the material of Russian reality. The author innovatively approached the problem of the character of the hero, the first of the Russian playwrights sought to psychologize him, to individualize the speech of the characters (here it is worth adding examples from the text!).
In his work, Fonvizin introduces biographies of heroes, takes a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of education, denoting the trinity of this problem: family, teachers, environment, that is, the problem of education is posed here as a social problem. All this allows us to conclude that “The Minor” is a work of educational realism.
K.V. Pisarev: “Fonvizin sought to generalize and typify reality. In the negative images of comedy, he succeeded brilliantly.<...>The positive characters of "The Minor" clearly lack artistic and life-like persuasiveness.<...>The images he created were not clothed with living human flesh and, indeed, are a kind of mouthpiece for the “voice”, “concepts” and “way of thinking” of both Fonvizin himself and the best representatives of his time.”
Critics doubted Fonvizin’s art of constructing dramatic action and spoke about the presence of “extra” scenes in it that do not fit into the action, which must certainly be unified:
P. A. Vyazemsky: “All other [except Prostakova] persons are secondary; some of them are completely extraneous, others are only adjacent to the action. Of the forty phenomena, including several rather long ones, there is hardly a third in the entire drama, and even then short ones, that are part of the action itself.”
A. N. Veselovsky: “the ineptitude in the structure of the play, which forever remained the weak side of Fonvizin’s writing, despite the school of European models”; “A widely developed desire to speak not in images, but in rhetoric<...>gives rise to stagnation, freezing, and the viewer then recognizes Milo’s view of true fearlessness in war and in peaceful life, then the sovereigns hear the unvarnished truth from virtuous people, or Starodum’s thoughts on the education of women...”
The word, the initial constructive material of the drama, emphatically appears in “Minor” in dual functions: in one case, the pictorial, plastic-depictive function of the word (negative characters) is emphasized, creating a model of the world of physical flesh, in the other - its self-valuable and independent ideal-conceptual nature (positive characters), for which a human character is needed only as an intermediary, translating an ethereal thought into the matter of a spoken word. Thus, the specificity of his dramaturgical word, which is initially and fundamentally two-valued and ambiguous, moves to the center of the aesthetics and poetics of “Minor.”
punning nature of the word
A technique for destroying a phraseological unit that pits the traditionally conventional figurative against the direct literal meaning of a word or phrase.
The poster itself explains the characters. P. A. Vyazemsky about the comedy “The Minor” ... A truly social comedy. N.V. Gogop about the comedy “The Minor” The first appearance of the comedy “The Minor” on the theater stage in 1872 caused, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, “throwing wallets” - the audience threw wallets filled with ducats onto the stage, such was their admiration for what they saw. Before D.I. Fonvizin, the public knew almost no Russian comedy. In the first public theater, organized by Peter I, Moliere's plays were staged, and the emergence of Russian comedy is associated with the name of A.P. Sumarokov. “The property of comedy is to rule the temper with mockery” - Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin embodied these words of A.P. Sumarokov in his plays. What caused such a strong reaction from the viewer? The liveliness of the characters, especially the negative ones, their figurative speech, the author's humor, so close to the folk one, the theme of the play is a satire on the principles of life and education of the sons of landowners, denunciation of serfdom. Fonvizin departs from one of the golden rules of classical comedy: while observing the unity of place and time, he omits the unity of action. There is virtually no plot development in the play; it consists of conversations between negative and positive characters. This is the influence of the author’s contemporary European comedy; here he goes further than Sumarokov. “French comedy is absolutely good... There are great actors in comedy... when you look at them, you, of course, forget that they are playing a comedy, but it seems that you are seeing a straight story,” Fonvizin writes to his sister while traveling around France. But Fonvizin can in no way be called an imitator. His plays are filled with a truly Russian spirit, written in a truly Russian language. It was from “The Minor” that I. A. Krylov’s fable “Trishkin Kaftan” grew, it was from the speeches of the heroes of the play that the aphorisms “mother’s son”, “I don’t want to study, I want to get married”, “fearing the abyss of wisdom” came out... The main idea of the play is show the fruits of bad upbringing or even the absence of it, and it grows into a frightening picture of wild landowner evil. Contrasting “evil characters” taken from reality, presenting them in a funny way, Fonvizin puts the author’s comments into the mouths of positive heroes, unusually virtuous people. As if not hoping that the reader himself will figure out who is bad and why he is bad, the writer assigns the main role to the positive characters. “The truth is that Starodum, Milon, Pravdin, Sophia are not so much living faces as moralistic dummies; but their actual originals were no more vivid than their dramatic photographs. .. They were walking, but still lifeless schemes of a new good morality... Time, intensification and experiments were needed to awaken organic life in these still lifeless cultural preparations,” historian V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote about the comedy. Negative characters appear completely alive before the viewer. And this is the main artistic merit of the play, Fonvizin’s luck. Like the positive characters, the negative ones have telling names, and the surname “Skotinin” grows into a full-fledged artistic image. In the very first act, Skotinin is naively surprised by his special love for pigs: “I love pigs, sister; and in our neighborhood there are such large pigs that there is not a single one of them that, standing on its hind legs, would not be taller than each of us by a whole head.” The author's ridicule is all the stronger because it is put into the mouth of the hero at whom we laugh. It turns out that love for pigs is a family trait. “Prostakov. It’s a strange thing, brother, how family can resemble family! Our Mitrofanushka is just like our uncle - and he is as big a hunter as you are. When I was still three years old, when I saw a pig, I used to tremble with joy. . Skotinin. This is truly a curiosity! Well, brother, let Mitrofan love pigs because he is my nephew. There is some similarity here: why am I so addicted to pigs? Prostakov. And there is some similarity here. That’s how I reason.” The author plays out the same motive in the remarks of other characters. In the fourth act, in response to Skotinin’s words that his family is “great and ancient,” Pravdin ironically remarks: “This way you will convince us that he is older than Adam.” Unsuspecting Skotinin falls into a trap, readily confirming this: “What do you think? At least a few...” and Starodum interrupts him: “That is, your ancestor was created even on the sixth day, but a little earlier than Adam.” Starodum directly refers to the Bible - on the sixth day, God created first animals, then humans. The comparison of caring for pigs with caring for a wife, coming from the same mouth of Skotinin, evokes Milon’s indignant remark: “What a bestial comparison!” Kuteikin, a cunning churchman, puts the author’s description into the mouth of Mitrofanushka himself, forcing him to read from the book of hours: “I am cattle, not man, a reproach of men.” The representatives of the Skotinin family themselves speak with comical simplicity about their “bestial” nature. “Prostakova. After all, I am the Skotinins’ father. The deceased father married the deceased mother; she was nicknamed Priplodin. They had eighteen of us children. ..” Skotinin speaks about his sister in the same terms as about his “cute pigs”: “To be honest, there is only one litter; Yes, look how she squealed..." Prostakova herself likens her love for her son to the affection of a dog for her puppies, and says about herself: “I, brother, won’t bark with you,” “Oh, I’m a dog’s daughter! What have I done!". Another special feature of the play “The Minor” is that each of the characters speaks their own language. This was appreciated by Fonvizin’s contemporaries: “everyone differs in their character with their sayings.” The speech of the retired soldier Tsyfirkin is filled with military terms, the speech of Kuteikin is built on Church Slavonic phrases, the speech of Vralman, a Russian German, obsequious with his masters and arrogant with his servants, is filled with aptly captured features of pronunciation. The vivid typicality of the play's heroes - Prostakov, Mitrofanushka, Skotinin - goes far beyond its boundaries in time and space. And in A. S. Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin”, and in M. Yu. Lermontov in “Tambov Treasury”, and in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Tashkent Gentlemen” we find references to them, still alive and carrying within themselves the essence of serf-owners, so talentedly revealed by Fonvizin.
The originality of D. I. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” Fonvizin executed in his comedies the wild ignorance of the old generation and the rough gloss of the superficial and external European half-education of the new generations. The comedy “The Minor” was written by D. I. Fonvizin in 1782 and has not yet left the stage. It is one of the author's best comedies. M. Gorky wrote: “In “Minor” the corrupting significance of serfdom and its influence on the nobility, spiritually ruined, degenerated and corrupted precisely by the slavery of the peasantry, was brought to light and onto the stage for the first time.”
All the heroes of Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor” are conventionally divided into positive and negative. The negative ones include the Prostakov family. Moral and positive people are represented by Pravdin, Starodum, Sophia and Milon.
Some literary critics believed that the positive heroes of “The Minor” were too ideal, that in reality such people did not exist and they were simply invented by the author. However, documents and letters of the 18th century confirm the existence of real prototypes of the heroes of the Fonvizin comedy. And about negative characters such as the Prostakovs and Skotinins, we can say with confidence that, despite the unconditional generalization, they were often found among the Russian provincial nobility of that time. There are two conflicts in the work. The main one is love, since it is he who develops the action of the comedy. It involves Sophia, Mitrofanushka, Milon and Skotinin. The characters have different attitudes to issues of love, family, and marriage. Starodum wants to see Sophia married to a worthy man, wishes her mutual love. Prostakova wants to marry Mitrofan profitably and rake in Sophia’s money. Mitrofan's motto: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married.” This phrase from the comedy “The Minor” has become a catchphrase. Overgrown people who don’t want to do anything, don’t want to study and only dream of pleasure are called Mitrof-1 nushki.
Another conflict of comedy is socio-political. It touches on very important issues of upbringing and education, morality. If Starodum believes that education comes from the family and the main thing in a person is honesty and good behavior, then Prostakova is convinced that it is more important that the child is fed, clothed and lives for his own pleasure. The comedy "The Minor" is written in the traditions of Russian classicism. It observes almost all the main features of classicism as a literary movement. There is also a strict division of heroes into positive and negative, the use of speaking surnames and the application of the rule of three unities (unity of place, time and action). The unity of the place is respected, since the entire action of the comedy takes place in the village of the Prostakovs. Since it lasts for 24 hours, the unity of time is maintained. However, the presence of two conflicts in a comedy violates the unity of action.
Unlike Western European classicism, there is a connection in Russian classicism with Russian folklore, civic patriotism and a satirical orientation. All this takes place in Nedorosl. The satirical slant of the comedy leaves no one in doubt. Proverbs and sayings, often found in the text of the comedy, make it a truly folk comedy (“Golden caftan, but a leaden head”, “The courage of the heart is proven in the hour of battle”, “Wealth is of no help to a foolish son”, “He who ranks not according to money, and in the nobility not according to ranks"), Pushkin called “The Minor” “the only monument of folk satire.” She is imbued with the spirit of civic patriotism, since her goal is to educate a citizen of her fatherland. One of the main advantages of comedy is its language. To create the characters of his heroes, Fonvizin uses speech characteristics. The vocabulary of Skotinin and Mitrofan is significantly limited. Sophia, Pravdin and Starodum speak correctly and very convincingly. Their speech is somewhat schematic and seems to be contained within strict boundaries.
Fonvizin’s negative characters, in my opinion, turned out to be more lively. They speak simple colloquial language, which sometimes even contains swear words. Prostakova's language is no different from the language of serfs; her speech contains many rude words and common expressions. In his speech, Tsyfirkin uses expressions that were used in military life, and Vralman speaks in broken Russian. In modern Fonvizin society, admiration for foreign countries and contempt for one’s Russian reigned. The education of the nobles was much better. Often the younger generation found itself in the hands of ignorant foreigners who, apart from backward views on science and bad qualities, could not instill anything in their charges. Well, what could the German coachman Vralman teach Mitrofanushka? What kind of knowledge could an over-aged child acquire to become an officer or official? In “The Minor,” Fonvizin expressed his protest against the Skotinins and Prostakovs and showed how young people cannot be educated, how spoiled they can grow up in an environment corrupted by the landowners’ power, obsequiously bowing to foreign culture. Comedy is instructive in nature and has great educational value. It makes you think about moral ideals, attitudes towards family, love for your fatherland, and raises questions of education and landowner tyranny.
The role of Fonvizin as an artist-playwright and author of satirical essays in the development of Russian literature is enormous, as well as the fruitful influence he had on many Russian writers not only of the 18th century, but also of the first half of the 19th century centuries. Not only the political progressiveness of Fonvizin’s work, but also his artistic progressiveness determined the deep respect and interest in him that Pushkin quite clearly showed.
Elements of realism arose in Russian literature of the 1770-1790s simultaneously in different areas and in different ways. This was the main trend in the development of the Russian aesthetic worldview of that time, which prepared - at the first stage - for its future Pushkin stage. But Fonvizin did more in this direction than others, not to mention Radishchev, who came after him and not without dependence on his creative discoveries, because it was Fonvizin who first raised the question of realism as a principle, as a system of understanding man and society.
On the other hand, realistic moments in Fonvizin’s work were most often limited to his satirical task. It was precisely the negative phenomena of reality that he was able to understand in a realistic sense, and this narrowed not only the scope of the topics he embodied in the new manner he discovered, but also narrowed the very principles of his formulation of the question. Fonvizin is included in this regard in the tradition of the “satirical direction,” as Belinsky called it, which constitutes a characteristic phenomenon of Russian literature of the 18th century. This trend is unique and, almost earlier than it could be in the West, prepared the formation of the style of critical realism. In itself, it grew in the depths of Russian classicism; it was associated with the specific forms that classicism acquired in Russia; it ultimately exploded the principles of classicism, but its origins from it are obvious.
Fonvizin grew up as a writer in the literary environment of Russian noble classicism of the 1760s, in the school of Sumarokov and Kheraskov. Throughout his life, his artistic thinking retained a clear imprint of the influence of this school. The rationalistic understanding of the world, characteristic of classicism, is strongly reflected in Fonvizin’s work. And for him, a person is most often not so much a specific individual as a unit in a social classification, and for him, a political dreamer, the social, the state can completely absorb the personal in the image of a person. The high pathos of social duty, subordinating in the writer’s mind the interests of the “too human” in a person, forced Fonvizin to see in his hero a pattern of civic virtues and vices; because he, like other classics, understood the state itself and the very duty to the state not historically, but mechanistically, to the extent of the metaphysical limitations of the Enlightenment worldview of the 18th century in general. Hence, Fonvizin was characterized by the great advantages of the classicism of his century: clarity, precision of the analysis of man as a general social concept, and the scientific nature of this analysis is at the level scientific achievements of his time, and the social principle of evaluating human actions and moral categories. But Fonvizin also had the inevitable shortcomings of classicism: the schematism of abstract classifications of people and moral categories, the mechanistic idea of a person as a conglomerate of abstractly conceivable “abilities,” the mechanistic and abstract nature of the very idea of the state as the norm of social existence.
In Fonvizin, many characters are constructed not according to the law of individual character, but according to a pre-given and limited scheme of moral and social norms. We see the quarrel, and only the quarrel of the Advisor; Gallomaniac Ivanushka - and the entire composition of his role is built on one or two notes; martinet Brigadier, but, apart from martinet, there is little in him characteristic features. This is the method of classicism - to show not living people, but individual vices or feelings, to show not everyday life, but a diagram of social relationships. Characters in comedies and satirical essays by Fonvizin are schematized. The very tradition of calling them “meaningful” names grows on the basis of a method that reduces the content of a character’s characteristics primarily to the very trait that is fixed by his name. The bribe-taker Vzyatkin, the fool Slaboumov, the “khalda” Khaldina, the tomboy Sorvantsov, the truth-lover Pravdin, etc. appear. At the same time, the artist’s task includes not so much the depiction of individual people, but the depiction of social relations, and this task could and was performed brilliantly by Fonvizin. Social relations, understood as applied to the ideal norm of the state, determined the content of a person only by the criteria of this norm. The subjectively noble character of the norm of state life, built by the Sumarokov-Panin school, also determined a feature characteristic of Russian classicism: it organically divides all people into nobles and “others.” The characteristics of the nobles include signs of their abilities, moral inclinations, feelings, etc. - Pravdin or Skotinin, Milon or Prostakov, Dobrolyubov or Durykin; the same is the differentiation of their characteristics in the text of the corresponding works. On the contrary, “others”, “ignoble” are characterized primarily by their profession, class, place in the social system - Kuteikin, Tsyfirkin, Tsezurkin, etc. Nobles for this system of thought are still people par excellence; or - according to Fonvizin - on the contrary: the best people should be nobles, and the Durykins are nobles only in name; the rest act as carriers common features their social affiliation, assessed positively or negatively depending on the attitude of this social category to the political concept of Fonvizin, or Sumarokov, Kheraskov, etc.
It is typical for a classicist writer to have the same attitude towards tradition, towards established mask roles literary work, to familiar and constantly repeating stylistic formulas, representing the established collective experience of humanity (the author’s anti-individualistic attitude towards the creative process is characteristic here). And Fonvizin freely operates with such ready-made formulas and masks given to him by ready-made tradition. Dobrolyubov in “The Brigadier” repeats Sumarokov’s ideal lovers’ comedies. The Clerical Advisor came to Fonvizin from the satirical articles and comedies of the same Sumarokov, just as the petimeter-Counselor had already appeared in plays and articles before Fonvizin’s comedy. Fonvizin, within the limits of his classical method, does not look for new individual themes. The world seems to him to have long been dissected, decomposed into typical features, society as a classified “mind” that has predetermined assessments and frozen configurations of “abilities” and social masks. The genres themselves are established, prescribed by rules and demonstrated by examples. A satirical article, a comedy, a solemn speech of praise in a high style (Fonvizin’s “Word for Paul’s recovery”), etc. - everything is unshakable and does not require the author’s invention; his task in this direction is to communicate to Russian literature the best achievements of world literature; this task of enriching Russian culture was solved all the more successfully by Fonvizin because he understood and felt the specific features of Russian culture itself, which refracted in its own way what came from the West.
Seeing a person not as an individual, but as a unit of the social or moral scheme of society, Fonvizin, in his classical manner, is antipsychological in the individual sense. He writes an obituary biography of his teacher and friend Nikita Panin; this article contains a hot political thought, a rise in political pathos; It also contains the hero’s track record, and there is also his civil glorification; but there is no person, personality, environment, and, in the end, no biography in it. This is a “life”, a diagram of an ideal life, not of a saint, of course, but politician, as Fonvizin understood him. Fonvizin’s anti-psychological manner is even more noticeable in his memoirs. They are called “Frank confession of my deeds and thoughts,” but the disclosure inner life there is almost nothing in these memoirs. Meanwhile, Fonvizin himself puts his memoirs in connection with Rousseau’s “Confession,” although he immediately characteristically contrasts his plan with the latter’s plan. In his memoirs, Fonvizin is a brilliant writer of everyday life and a satirist, first of all; individualistic self-revelation, brilliantly resolved by Rousseau's book, is alien to him. In his hands, the memoirs turn into a series of moralizing sketches, such as satirical letters-articles of journalism of the 1760-1780s. At the same time, they provide a picture of social life in its negative manifestations that is exceptional in its wealth of witty details, and this is their great merit. Fonvizin the classic's people are static. The Brigadier, the Advisor, Ivanushka, Julitta (in the early “Nedorosl”), etc. - they are all given from the very beginning and do not develop during the movement of the work. In the first act of "The Brigadier", in the exposition, the heroes themselves directly and unambiguously define all the features of their character schemes, and in the future we see only comic combinations and collisions of the same features, and these collisions do not affect the internal structure of each role. Then, characteristic of Fonvizin is the verbal definition of masks. The soldier's speech of the Brigadier, the clerical speech of the Adviser, the petimetric speech of Ivanushka, in essence, exhausts the description. After subtracting the speech characteristics, no other individual human traits remain. And they will all make jokes: fools and smart ones, evil and good will make jokes, because the heroes of “The Brigadier” are still heroes of a classical comedy, and everything in it should be funny and “intricate,” and Boileau himself demanded from the author of the comedy “that he the words were everywhere replete with witticisms” (“Poetic Art”). It was a strong, powerful system artistic thinking, which gave a significant aesthetic effect in its specific forms and was superbly realized not only in “The Brigadier”, but also in Fonvizin’s satirical articles.
Fonvizin remains a classic in the genre that flourished in a different, pre-romantic literary and ideological environment, in artistic memoirs. He adheres to the external canons of classicism in his comedies. They basically follow the rules of the school. Fonvizin most often has no interest in the plot side of the work.
In a number of Fonvizin’s works: in the early “Minor”, in “The Governor’s Choice” and in “The Brigadier”, in the story “Kalisthenes” the plot is only a frame, more or less conventional. “The Brigadier,” for example, is structured as a series of comic scenes, and above all a series of declarations of love: Ivanushka and the Advisor, the Advisor and the Brigadier, the Brigadier and the Advisor, and all these couples are contrasted not so much in the movement of the plot, but in the plane of schematic contrast, a pair of exemplary lovers: Dobrolyubov and Sophia. There is almost no action in the comedy; In terms of construction, “The Brigadier” is very reminiscent of Sumarokov’s farces with a gallery of comic characters.
However, even the most convinced, most zealous classicist in Russian noble literature, Sumarokov, found it difficult, perhaps even impossible, not to see or depict specific features of reality at all, to remain only in the world created by reason and the laws of abstract art. To leave this world was obligated, first of all, by dissatisfaction with the real, real world. For the Russian noble classicist, the concrete individual reality of social reality, so different from the ideal norm, is evil; it invades, as a deviation from this norm, the world of the rationalistic ideal; it cannot be framed in reasonable, abstract forms. But it exists, both Sumarokov and Fonvizin know this. Society lives an abnormal, “unreasonable” life. We have to reckon with this and fight against it. Positive phenomena in public life for both Sumarokov and Fonvizin they are normal and reasonable. Negative ones fall out of the scheme and appear in all their painful individuality for the classicist. Hence, in the satirical genres of Sumarokov in Russian classicism, the desire to show concretely real features of reality is born. Thus, in Russian classicism, the reality of a specific fact of life arose as a satirical theme, with a sign of a certain, condemning author’s attitude.
Fonvizin’s position on this issue is more complicated. The tension of the political struggle pushed him to take more radical steps in relation to the perception and depiction of reality, hostile to him, surrounding him on all sides, threatening his entire worldview. The struggle activated his vigilance for life. He raises the question of the social activity of a citizen writer, of an impact on life that is more acute than noble writers could do before him. “At the court of a king, whose autocracy is not limited by anything... can the truth be freely expressed? “- writes Fonvizin in the story “Kalisthenes”. And now his task is to explain the truth. A new ideal of a writer-fighter is emerging, very reminiscent of the ideal of a leading figure in literature and journalism in the Western educational movement. Fonvizin draws closer to the bourgeois progressive thought of the West on the basis of his liberalism, rejection of tyranny and slavery, and the struggle for his social ideal.
Why is there almost no culture of eloquence in Russia? - Fonvizin poses the question in “Friend of Honest People” and answers that this does not come “from a lack of national talent, which is capable of everything great, but rather from a lack of the Russian language, the richness and beauty of which is convenient for everyone.” expression,” but from the lack of freedom, the lack of public life, and the exclusion of citizens from participating in the political life of the country. Art and political activity are closely related to each other. For Fonvizin, the writer is “a guardian of the common good,” “a useful adviser to the sovereign, and sometimes the savior of his fellow citizens and the fatherland.”
In the early 1760s, in his youth, Fonvizin was fascinated by the ideas of bourgeois radical thinkers in France. In 1764, he remade Gresset’s “Sidney” into Russian, not quite a comedy, but not a tragedy either, a play similar in type to the psychological dramas of bourgeois literature of the 18th century. in France. In 1769, an English story, “Sidney and Scilly or Beneficence and Gratitude,” translated by Fonvizin from Arno, was published. This is a sentimental work, virtuous, sublime, but built on new principles of individual analysis. Fonvizin is looking for rapprochement with bourgeois French literature. The fight against reaction pushes him onto the path of interest in advanced Western thought. And in his literary work Fonvizin could not be only a follower of classicism.
The immortal comedy by D. I. Fonvizin “The Minor” was and remains one of the most relevant works of Russian classics. The breadth of views of the writer, his deep convictions about the benefits of education and enlightenment, were reflected in the creation of this brilliant work. We invite you to familiarize yourself with a brief analysis of the work according to plan. This material can be used for work in a literature lesson in 8th grade, to prepare for the Unified State Exam.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1782
History of creation– The writer’s idea for a comedy arose after returning from abroad, under the influence of the educational views of a foreign country.
Subject– The main theme of “Minor” is enlightenment and education, educating a new generation in the spirit of new trends of the times and political changes.
Composition- the comedy is built according to all the rules of the genre, three components are observed in it - the unity of action, place and time. Consists of five actions.
Genre– The play is a comedy, a bright and lively narrative that does not contain tragic episodes.
History of creation
In “The Minor,” the analysis of the work involves revealing the theme, the main idea of the comedy, its essence and idea.
First, let's define the meaning of the name. In the eighteenth century, the word “minor” meant a person who did not have an education document. Such a person was not accepted into the service and was not allowed to marry.
Fonvizin lived in France for more than a year, delving deeply into its educational doctrines. He was occupied with all spheres of the country's social life, he delved into philosophy and jurisprudence. The writer paid much attention to theatrical productions, in particular comedies.
When the writer returned to Russia, he came up with a plan for the comedy “Unorosl”, where the characters would receive meaningful surnames in order to more deeply express the meaning of the comedy. Work on the history of creation took the writer almost three years; it began in 1778, and the final year of writing was 1782.
Subject
Initially the main theme of the comedy the theme of upbringing and education of the new generation was assumed; later, the problems of “Undergrowth” included socio-political problems that directly related to the decree of Peter the Great banning the service and marriage of noblemen – undergrowth.
The Prostakov family, which has the undergrown Mitrofanushka, has deep noble roots. In the first place for such Prostakovs is pride in their noble class, and they do not accept anything new and progressive. They do not need education at all, since serfdom has not yet been abolished, and there is someone to work for them. Above all, for the Prostakovs, material well-being, greed and greed turn a blind eye to their son’s education, power and wealth are more important.
The family is the example on which a person grows and is educated. Mitrofanushka fully reflects the behavior and lifestyle of her despotic mother, but Mrs. Prostakova does not understand that she is the example for her son, and wonders why he does not show her due respect.
Revealing comedy problems, intrafamily conflict Prostakov, we come to the conclusion that everything depends on a person’s upbringing. A person’s attitude towards strangers around him, his decency and honesty depend only on a decent upbringing in the family. What the writer’s comedy teaches is education, respect for one’s neighbor, good manners and prudence.
Composition
The masterfully executed features of the composition allow you to become familiar with the main characters at the very beginning of the play. Already at the end of the first act the plot begins. Pravdin and Sophia immediately appear in the comedy. There is intrigue in the comedy - Sophia's rich dowry, which they learn about from Starodum's story, and the fight for her hand flares up.
In the next two acts, events develop rapidly, tension grows, the peak of which occurs in the fourth act, in which Prostakova comes up with the idea of kidnapping Sophia and forcefully marrying her to a minor.
Gradually, the development of the action begins to decline, and in the fifth act the comedy comes to a denouement. It becomes known about the unsuccessful abduction of Sophia. Pravdin accuses the Prostakovs of evil intentions and threatens punishment.
A paper arrives about the arrest of the Prostakovs' property, Sophia and Milon are about to leave, and Mitrofanushka is forced to join the soldiers.
Using in his comedy such artistic means as speaking surnames and first names, the author gives a moral assessment to the characters, which does not raise any doubts about its justice. This is the general characteristic of comedy.
Main characters
Genre
Fonvizin's play is built according to the laws of classicism. Events take place during the day in one place. The comedic nature of the play is clearly expressed through sharp satire, mercilessly ridiculing the vices of society. The play also contains funny motifs, permeated with humor, and there are also sad ones, in which the landowner arrogantly mocks her serfs.
The writer was an ardent supporter of education; he understood that only comprehensive education and proper upbringing can help a person grow into a highly moral person and become a worthy citizen of his homeland. The institution of the family, where the foundations of human behavior are laid, should play a huge role in this.
Critics were enthusiastic about the comedy “The Minor,” calling it the pinnacle of Russian drama in the 18th century. All critics wrote that Fonvizin, with maximum accuracy and straightforwardness, described typical images and characteristics of society, which look caricatured and grotesque, but in fact, are simply taken from life and described from life. And in the modern world, comedy remains relevant: now in society there is also a large number of “Mitrofanushki”, for whom the meaning of life lies in material wealth, and education is given a minimal place.
Exam: Russian literature of the 18th century
"Nedorosl" is the first socio-political comedy on the Russian stage.
The artistic originality of "The Minor" is determined by the fact that the play combines the features of classicism and realism. Formally, Fonvizin remained within the framework of classicism: observance of the unity of place, time and action, the conventional division of characters into positive and negative, schematism in the depiction of positive ones, “speaking names”, features of reasoning in the image of Starodum, and so on. But, at the same time, he took a certain step towards realism. This is manifested in the accuracy of the reproduction of the provincial noble type, social relations in the fortress village, the fidelity of the recreation of the typical features of negative characters, and the life-like authenticity of the images. For the first time in the history of Russian drama, the love affair was relegated to the background and acquired secondary importance.
Fonvizin's comedy is a new phenomenon, because it is written on the material of Russian reality. The author innovatively approached the problem of the character of the hero, the first of the Russian playwrights sought to psychologize him, to individualize the speech of the characters (here it is worth adding examples from the text!).
“Fonvizin introduces biographies of heroes into his work, takes a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of education, denoting the trinity of this problem: family, teachers, environment, that is, the problem of education is posed here as a social problem. All this allows us to conclude that “The Minor” is a work educational realism.
K.V. Pisarev: "<...>Fonvizin sought to generalize and typify reality. In the negative images of comedy, he succeeded brilliantly.<...>The positive characters of "The Minor" clearly lack artistic and life-like persuasiveness.<...>The images he created were not clothed with living human flesh and, indeed, are a kind of mouthpiece for the “voice”, “concepts” and “way of thinking” of both Fonvizin himself and the best representatives of his time.”
Critics doubted Fonvizin’s art of constructing dramatic action and spoke about the presence of “extra” scenes in it that do not fit into the action, which must certainly be unified:
P. A. Vyazemsky: “All the other [except Prostakova] persons are secondary; some of them are completely extraneous, others only join in the action.<...>Of the forty phenomena, including several rather long ones, there is hardly a third in the entire drama, and even then short ones, that are part of the action itself."
A. N. Veselovsky: "<...>ineptitude in the structure of the play, which forever remained a weak side of Fonvizin’s writing, despite the school of European models<...>"; "A widely developed desire to speak not in images, but in rhetoric<...>gives rise to stagnation, freezing, and the viewer then learns Milo’s view of true fearlessness in war and in peaceful life, then the sovereigns hear the unvarnished truth from virtuous people, or Starodum’s thoughts on the education of women..."
The word, the initial constructive material of the drama, emphatically appears in “Minor” in dual functions: in one case, the pictorial, plastic-depictive function of the word (negative characters) is emphasized, creating a model of the world of physical flesh, in the other - its self-valuable and independent ideal-conceptual nature (positive characters), for which a human character is needed only as an intermediary, translating an ethereal thought into the matter of a spoken word. Thus, the specificity of its dramaturgical word, which is initially and fundamentally two-valued and ambiguous, comes to the center of the aesthetics and poetics of “The Minor.”
punning nature of the word
A technique for destroying a phraseological unit that pits the traditionally conventional figurative against the direct literal meaning of a word or phrase.
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23. D.I. Fonvizin: creativity, personality. Comedy “The Minor”: issues, plot and compositional structure. Researchers about comedy
Outstanding Russian educator, playwright, writer, comedian. DI. Fonvizin was born in 1745. From an old noble family. He studied at the Moscow State University in the gymnasium. In 1762 he moved to St. Petersburg and actively participated in literary life. Experiences the ideas of enlightenment. His political and realistic freethinking.
Researchers of Fonvizin’s work Makogonenkov, Moskvicheva, Zapadov identified 2 periods in Fonvizin’s work. Early period and mature. The early period ends with "The Brigadier", in the mature 1770-80s - the time of the creation of the comedy "The Minor". In 1769 he writes “a message to my servants.” Teaching with laughter. Since the 60s, it has been marked by ideological and creative maturity. He is burdened by creative life. In 1769, The Brigadier was published. An important milestone in the domestic liter. 12 years later, Fonvizin will continue the topic in “Nedorosl”, where he will pose the problem of education and enlightenment. In 1782 he retired and was engaged in literary activities. It is published in the magazine “Interlocutor of Lovers” Russian word" An attempt to publish a five-volume collected works. For the last three years of his life he has been working in the magazine “Friend of Honest People or Starodum.” In 1789, when the French Revolution broke out, he began work on an autobiographical story. “A sincere confession about my deeds and thoughts.” The work was not finished. He was a major playwright and educator. In his works he put forward the ideals of goodness, equality and justice. His traditions were continued by Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit” and Gogol in “The Inspector General”.
Comedy "Undergrown"
This is Fonvizin’s pinnacle work, which is closely connected with the era and worldview of the author himself. The comedy was completed in 1782. The author brings representatives of the provincial nobility onto the stage. The landowners were corrupted. It shows the depravity of the society that grew up in this environment. The comedy addresses several issues, the main one being the problem of education; this problem, according to Fonvizin, is of national importance, so he demonstrates the fruits of Mitrofanushka’s bad upbringing. As a result, we have Mitrofanushka - a consequence of the entire way of life.
The 2nd problem is the problem of serfdom and the problem of slavery. Through the lips of positive heroes, Fonvizin says: “It is illegal to oppress one’s own kind through slavery.”
The problem of power and sharp criticism of the regime based on tyranny are also condemned.
The plot and compositional structure of the comedy is complex. Conventionally, there are 2 lines in a comedy: First line– everyday – the struggle for Sophia’s hand and inheritance. The comedy is based on the fact that the world of simpletons and Skotinins is a world of ignorant, narcissistic tyrant landowners. He wants to subjugate his whole life. Wants to assign the right to unlimited power over all people. Both over serfs and over nobles. Negative and positive heroes were shared. The Prostakovs and Skotinins are like this because their ancestors were like this. Wednesday is addictive. The negative characters show the loss of humanity and the presence of the carnal principle. This is how the motive of bestiality is played out. Prostakova is a rude woman. There is constant abuse and beatings in her house, she is the guardian of order. People with different views on life collide.
The second line is public. In the play, people of different views on life collide. The difference is in a person's assessment. Positive characters are judged by their moral state.
The comedy of the play lies in the fact that the rudeness, greed and ignorance of the Prostakovs and Skotinins pretend to be polite and simple-minded. The comic is based on the absurdity of the form of the content. Among the outstanding advantages of comedy is its language.
Speaking names. Starodum and Pravdin speak fluently. Kuteikin embellishes speech from spiritual books. The comedy is highly appreciated by Belinsky: “Fonvizin very truthfully portrayed feudal reality. He put her out to shame, in all her nakedness and general ugliness. Fonvizin executed in comedy the wild ignorance of the old generation and the rough gloss of the superficial and external European sex education of the new generation.
The problem of artistic method in comedy.
1st position. G.V. Moskvicheva: “The comedy is written entirely in the traditions of classicism, while realistic tendencies are not denied.”
2nd position. G.P. Makogonenko believed that the comedy was written in line with realism. In recent years, this position has been criticized in the scientific literature.
3rd position. Yu.V. Stennik talks about different layers in the artistic structure of comedy.
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The poster itself explains the characters. P. A. Vyazemsky about the comedy “The Minor” ... A truly social comedy. N.V. Gogop about the comedy “The Minor” The first appearance of the comedy “The Minor” on the theater stage in 1872 caused, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, “throwing wallets” - the audience threw wallets filled with ducats onto the stage, such was their admiration for what they saw. Before D.I. Fonvizin, the public knew almost no Russian comedy. In the first public theater, organized by Peter I, Moliere's plays were staged, and the emergence of Russian comedy is associated with the name of A.P. Sumarokov. “The property of comedy is to rule the temper with mockery” - Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin embodied these words of A.P. Sumarokov in his plays. What caused such a strong reaction from the viewer? The liveliness of the characters, especially the negative ones, their figurative speech, the author's humor, so close to the folk one, the theme of the play is a satire on the principles of life and education of the sons of landowners, denunciation of serfdom. Fonvizin departs from one of the golden rules of classical comedy: while observing the unity of place and time, he omits the unity of action. There is virtually no plot development in the play; it consists of conversations between negative and positive characters. This is the influence of the author’s contemporary European comedy; here he goes further than Sumarokov. “French comedy is absolutely good... There are great actors in comedy... when you look at them, you, of course, forget that they are playing a comedy, but it seems that you are seeing a straight story,” Fonvizin writes to his sister while traveling around France. But Fonvizin can in no way be called an imitator. His plays are filled with a truly Russian spirit, written in a truly Russian language. It was from “The Minor” that I. A. Krylov’s fable “Trishkin Kaftan” grew, it was from the speeches of the heroes of the play that the aphorisms “mother’s son”, “I don’t want to study, I want to get married”, “fearing the abyss of wisdom” came out... The main idea of the play is show the fruits of bad upbringing or even the absence of it, and it grows into a frightening picture of wild landowner evil. Contrasting “evil characters” taken from reality, presenting them in a funny way, Fonvizin puts the author’s comments into the mouths of positive heroes, unusually virtuous people. As if not hoping that the reader himself will figure out who is bad and why he is bad, the writer assigns the main role to the positive characters. “The truth is that Starodum, Milon, Pravdin, Sophia are not so much living faces as moralistic dummies; but their actual originals were no more vivid than their dramatic photographs. .. They were walking, but still lifeless schemes of a new good morality... Time, intensification and experiments were needed to awaken organic life in these still lifeless cultural preparations,” historian V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote about the comedy. Negative characters appear completely alive before the viewer. And this is the main artistic merit of the play, Fonvizin’s luck. Like the positive characters, the negative ones have telling names, and the surname “Skotinin” grows into a full-fledged artistic image. In the very first act, Skotinin is naively surprised by his special love for pigs: “I love pigs, sister; and in our neighborhood there are such large pigs that there is not a single one of them that, standing on its hind legs, would not be taller than each of us by a whole head.” The author's ridicule is all the stronger because it is put into the mouth of the hero at whom we laugh. It turns out that love for pigs is a family trait. “Prostakov. It’s a strange thing, brother, how family can resemble family! Our Mitrofanushka is just like our uncle - and he is as big a hunter as you are. When I was still three years old, when I saw a pig, I used to tremble with joy. . Skotinin. This is truly a curiosity! Well, brother, let Mitrofan love pigs because he is my nephew. There is some similarity here: why am I so addicted to pigs? Prostakov. And there is some similarity here. That’s how I reason.” The author plays out the same motive in the remarks of other characters. In the fourth act, in response to Skotinin’s words that his family is “great and ancient,” Pravdin ironically remarks: “This way you will convince us that he is older than Adam.” Unsuspecting Skotinin falls into a trap, readily confirming this: “What do you think? At least a few...” and Starodum interrupts him: “That is, your ancestor was created even on the sixth day, but a little earlier than Adam.” Starodum directly refers to the Bible - on the sixth day, God created first animals, then humans. The comparison of caring for pigs with caring for a wife, coming from the same mouth of Skotinin, evokes Milon’s indignant remark: “What a bestial comparison!” Kuteikin, a cunning churchman, puts the author’s description into the mouth of Mitrofanushka himself, forcing him to read from the book of hours: “I am cattle, not man, a reproach of men.” The representatives of the Skotinin family themselves speak with comical simplicity about their “bestial” nature. “Prostakova. After all, I am the Skotinins’ father. The deceased father married the deceased mother; she was nicknamed Priplodin. They had eighteen of us children. ..” Skotinin speaks about his sister in the same terms as about his “cute pigs”: “To be honest, there is only one litter; Yes, look how she squealed..." Prostakova herself likens her love for her son to the affection of a dog for her puppies, and says about herself: “I, brother, won’t bark with you,” “Oh, I’m a dog’s daughter! What have I done!". Another special feature of the play “The Minor” is that each of the characters speaks their own language. This was appreciated by Fonvizin’s contemporaries: “everyone differs in their character with their sayings.” The speech of the retired soldier Tsyfirkin is filled with military terms, the speech of Kuteikin is built on Church Slavonic phrases, the speech of Vralman, a Russian German, obsequious with his masters and arrogant with his servants, is filled with aptly captured features of pronunciation. The vivid typicality of the play's heroes - Prostakov, Mitrofanushka, Skotinin - goes far beyond its boundaries in time and space. And in A. S. Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin”, and in M. Yu. Lermontov in “Tambov Treasury”, and in M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Tashkent Gentlemen” we find references to them, still alive and carrying within themselves the essence of serf-owners, so talentedly revealed by Fonvizin.
A comedy by D. I. Fonvizin, in which, while maintaining a theatrically conventional plot collision, the everyday life of middle-income landowners, busy with concerns about their own prosperity, was depicted, the artistic content of which consisted in a new display of life on stage, and specifically Russian provincial, landowner life, and a new showing a person with more complex psychological characteristics and in more clarified specific social conditions, had a great influence on the subsequent development of the comedy genre.
The artistic method of “Minor” by D. I. Fonvizin is defined as early Russian realism of the Enlightenment, which relies on existing literary traditions (classicism), uses artistic techniques and visual means of previous literary movements, but updates them, subordinating them to its creative task.
Outwardly, the comedy is based on the traditional motive of matchmaking and the emerging struggle of suitors for the heroine. It respects all three unities - action, time, place. The action takes place in the village of Prostakova during the day. By the beginning of the events in Prostakova’s house, the fate of the heroes was determined as follows. Sophia and Milon love each other. They know each other from St. Petersburg. Milon's uncle Cheston was favorable towards the love of young people. On business, Milon travels with his team to one of the provinces. During his absence, Sophia's mother dies. A young girl is taken to the village by a distant relative. Here, after some time, the events narrated in the comedy unfold. They constitute the final stage and are completed within a day.
Prostakova decides to marry her poor relative Sophia to her brother, believing that Sophia as a bride is of no interest to her personally. Starodum's letter, from which everyone learns that she is a rich heiress, changes Prostakova's plans. A conflict arises between her and her brother.
The third “seeker” appears - Milon. Prostakova decides to stand her ground and organizes Sophia’s kidnapping. Sophia is saved from a very dramatic end to the matchmaking by the intervention of Milon, who takes his bride away from Prostakova’s “people.” This scene sets up the denouement. Comic heroes are put to shame, vice is punished: the comedy has a moralizing ending. Prostakova was deprived of her rights over the peasants for abusing her power, and her estate was taken under guardianship.
Thus, Skotinin’s matchmaking, receipt of Starodum’s letter, the decision to marry Mitrofan to Sophia, the attempt to kidnap Sophia, Prostakova’s intention to deal with the servants, sort them out “one by one” and find out “who let her out of their hands”, finally, Pravdin’s announcement of the decree on the capture Prostakova's houses and villages under her care are the key, central situations of the comedy.
In connection with the main theme of the comedy, the structure of “The Minor” includes scenes and persons that are not directly related to the development of the plot, but are somehow related to the content of the comedy. Some of them are imbued with true comedy. These are scenes with Mitrofan trying on a new dress and a discussion of Trishka’s work, Mitrofan’s lessons, a quarrel between a sister and brother ending in a “brawl,” a quarrel between teachers, a comic dialogue during Mitrofan’s exam. All of them create an idea of the everyday life of an uncultured landowner family, the level of its demands, intra-family relationships, and convince the viewer of the verisimilitude and vitality of what is happening on stage.
Other scenes are in a different style. These are dialogues of positive heroes - Starodum, Pravdin, Milon, Starodum and Sophia, whose content echoes the dialogues of tragic heroes. They talk about an enlightened monarch, about the appointment of a nobleman, about marriage and family, about the education of young nobles, about “that it is unlawful to oppress one’s own kind through slavery.” These speeches, in essence, represent a presentation of the positive program of D. I. Fonvizin.
The action in the comedy unites all the characters and at the same time divides them into. evil and virtuous. The former seem to be concentrated around Prostakova, the latter - around Starodum. This also applies minor characters: teachers and servants. The nature of the characters' participation in events is not the same. In terms of the degree of activity among negative characters, Prostakova is rightly placed in first place, then Skotinin, Mitrofan. Prostakov essentially does not participate in the struggle. Of the positive characters, Sophia is passive. As for the rest, their participation in events manifests itself at the most decisive moments; Starodum announces his “will” to the suitors, predetermining the outcome; saves his bride from Milon's kidnappers with a weapon in his hands; announces a government decree on the guardianship of Pravdin.
It should be noted that, preserving the classic tradition, D. I. Fonvizin gives the heroes of the comedy meaningful names and surnames. This corresponds to the one-line character of the heroes, whose characters have a certain dominant. What is new in the depiction of heroes are the individual biographical factors of character formation (Prostakov and Prostakova), the presence of vivid speech characteristics of the heroes, the reflection in the comedy of the complexity of characters capable of self-development (the images of Mitrofan, Prostakova, Eremeevna).
The difference between heroes is not limited to their moral qualities. The introduction of extra-plot scenes into the comedy expanded and deepened its content and determined the presence of other, deeper grounds for contrasting the nobles depicted in it. In accordance with this, the comedy has two endings. One concerns the relationship between Mitrofan, Skotinin, Milon and Sophia, whose fate was determined, on the one hand, by Prostakova, on the other, by Starodum; the second relates to the fate of Prostakova as an evil landowner and a bad mother. In the events of this denouement, the social and moral ideals of the author are revealed, and the ideological and ethical orientation of the comedy as a whole is determined.
The pinnacle of Russian drama of the 18th century is D. I. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor,” the first Russian socio-political comedy, in which “the worthy fruits of evil” are condemned with sarcasm. According to Gogol, Fonvizin created a “truly social comedy”, where he revealed “the wounds and illnesses of our society, serious internal abuses, which, by the merciless power of irony, are exposed in stunning evidence.”
The comedy genre has been known since ancient times. Aristotle also defined the main features of comedy, based on the fact that the main thing in a dramatic work is the image of a person and his character. Since people “are either good or bad”, “differ either in depravity or virtue,” he saw the difference between tragedy and comedy in the fact that comedy “seeks to portray worse people,” and tragedy “better people than existing ones.” The next stage in the development of comedy was associated with classicism, which preserved the distinction between the tragic and the comic, characteristic of the era of antiquity. The moral principle of dividing people into “best” and “worst” was also preserved. At the same time, in the literature of classicism, those who were concerned about state affairs were recognized as the “best”, and those who lived by their own interests were recognized as the “worst”.
The purpose of classical comedy is to “enlighten”, making fun of shortcomings: eccentricity, extravagance, laziness, stupidity. However, it does not follow from this that the comedy of the classic period was devoid of social content. Quite the opposite: the ideal of that era, its true hero, was recognized as a man of a social nature, for whom the interests of the state and nation were above personal ones. Comedy was intended to affirm this high ideal by ridiculing psychological human properties that reduced the social significance of the individual.
D. I. Fonvizin in “Nedorosl” observes the classic principle of the “trinity” of time, place and action: events take place “in the village of Prostakova” during the day. At the same time, readers are delighted by the boldness and unexpectedness of the artistic solutions proposed by the playwright. It is safe to say that in “Nedorosl” Fonvizin acted as a true innovator. The genre definition of comedy has been controversial among critics. The playwright himself called his comedy social. V. G. Belinsky, noting genre originality of this work, gave its clear definition - “satire of genres”. The critic argued: “Undergrowth” is not piece of art, but a satire on morals, and a masterful satire. Its characters are fools and smart ones: the fools are all very nice, and the smart ones are all very vulgar; the first are caricatures written with great talent; the latter are reasoners who bore you with their maxims.” He also noted that Fonvizin’s comedies “will never cease to excite laughter and, gradually losing readers in the highest educational circles of society, all the more will they win them in the lower ones and become popular reading.”
The historian V. O. Klyuchevsky, disputing the definition given by Belinsky, argued that “Nedorosl” is a sitcom: “In Nedorosl” bad people of the old school are placed directly against new ideas, embodied in the pale virtuous figures of Starodum, Pravdin and others, who came to tell those people that times have changed, that they need to educate themselves, think and act differently from the way they are used to doing it.”
Based on the modern definition of genres, let us consider artistic and genre features socio-political comedy "Minor". The comedy is based on the traditional motive of matchmaking and the fight of suitors for the heroine. The events that the comedy narrates have the following background. At Sophia's main character comedy, mother dies. A distant relative of Prostakov takes the girl to the village and decides to marry Sophia to her brother Skotinin. At this time, Sophia receives a letter from her uncle Starodum, from which everyone learns that she is a rich heiress. This radically changes the behavior strategy of Prostakova, who decides to “place” her idiot son Mitrofanushka. He happily accepts his mother’s decision, because he has long been tired of studying: “The hour of my will has long come. I don’t want to study, I want to get married.”
However, in the arena of the struggle for a rich bride, Milon, whom Sophia loves, upsets Prostakova’s plans. This is the love line of the play. However, she was not the only one who was the focus of the playwright’s attention.
The action in the comedy unites all the characters and at the same time divides them into “evil” and “virtuous”. The first are concentrated around Prostakova, the second - around Starodum. The dialogues of the characters of the second group, in fact, represent a presentation of the positive program of Fonvizin himself. In them we're talking about about an enlightened monarch, about the appointment of a nobleman, about marriage and family, about the education of young nobles and that “it is unlawful to oppress one’s own kind through slavery.” This is especially clearly manifested in Starodum’s edifying, didactic speech addressed to Sophia. Starodum reflects on wealth (“according to my calculations, it is not the rich man who counts out money in order to hide it in a chest, but the one who counts out his excess in order to help those who do not have what he needs”), nobility (“without noble affairs noble fortune is nothing"). His conclusions reflect the system of views and principles of Catherine’s era: “It is impossible to forgive an honest person if he lacks some quality of heart... An honest person must be a completely honest person.”
The characters of the first group are depicted in the comedy satirically and caricaturedly. What is Fonvizin against? Against the ignorance of the nobles, “those malicious ignoramuses who, having their full power over people, use it inhumanly for evil.” Against the consumer attitude to life, which is determined by the entire atmosphere of manor life. Against the heartlessness and despotism of the masters, their reluctance to recognize the rights of serfs to equality with the “nobles”. Thus, this comedy has a strong socio-political orientation. According to V.G. Belinsky, Fonvizin’s comedies, including “The Minor,” are not comedies in the artistic sense, but they are “wonderful works of fiction, precious chronicles of the public of that time.”
The originality of D. I. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” Fonvizin executed in his comedies the wild ignorance of the old generation and the rough gloss of the superficial and external European half-education of the new generations. The comedy “The Minor” was written by D. I. Fonvizin in 1782 and has not yet left the stage. It is one of the author's best comedies. M. Gorky wrote: “In “Minor” the corrupting significance of serfdom and its influence on the nobility, spiritually ruined, degenerated and corrupted precisely by the slavery of the peasantry, was brought to light and onto the stage for the first time.”
All the heroes of Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor” are conventionally divided into positive and negative. The negative ones include the Prostakov family. Moral and positive people are represented by Pravdin, Starodum, Sophia and Milon.
Some literary critics believed that the positive heroes of “The Minor” were too ideal, that in reality such people did not exist and they were simply invented by the author. However, documents and letters of the 18th century confirm the existence of real prototypes of the heroes of the Fonvizin comedy. And about negative characters such as the Prostakovs and Skotinins, we can say with confidence that, despite the unconditional generalization, they were often found among the Russian provincial nobility of that time. There are two conflicts in the work. The main one is love, since it is he who develops the action of the comedy. It involves Sophia, Mitrofanushka, Milon and Skotinin. The characters have different attitudes to issues of love, family, and marriage. Starodum wants to see Sophia married to a worthy man, wishes her mutual love. Prostakova wants to marry Mitrofan profitably and rake in Sophia’s money. Mitrofan's motto: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married.” This phrase from the comedy “The Minor” has become a catchphrase. Overgrown people who don’t want to do anything, don’t want to study and only dream of pleasure are called Mitrof-1 nushki.
Another conflict of comedy is socio-political. It touches on very important issues of upbringing and education, morality. If Starodum believes that education comes from the family and the main thing in a person is honesty and good behavior, then Prostakova is convinced that it is more important that the child is fed, clothed and lives for his own pleasure. The comedy "The Minor" is written in the traditions of Russian classicism. It observes almost all the main features of classicism as a literary movement. There is also a strict division of heroes into positive and negative, the use of speaking surnames and the application of the rule of three unities (unity of place, time and action). The unity of the place is respected, since the entire action of the comedy takes place in the village of the Prostakovs. Since it lasts for 24 hours, the unity of time is maintained. However, the presence of two conflicts in a comedy violates the unity of action.
Unlike Western European classicism, there is a connection in Russian classicism with Russian folklore, civic patriotism and a satirical orientation. All this takes place in Nedorosl. The satirical slant of the comedy leaves no one in doubt. Proverbs and sayings, often found in the text of the comedy, make it a truly folk comedy (“Golden caftan, but a leaden head”, “The courage of the heart is proven in the hour of battle”, “Wealth is of no help to a foolish son”, “He who ranks not according to money, and in the nobility not according to ranks"), Pushkin called “The Minor” “the only monument of folk satire.” She is imbued with the spirit of civic patriotism, since her goal is to educate a citizen of her fatherland. One of the main advantages of comedy is its language. To create the characters of his heroes, Fonvizin uses speech characteristics. The vocabulary of Skotinin and Mitrofan is significantly limited. Sophia, Pravdin and Starodum speak correctly and very convincingly. Their speech is somewhat schematic and seems to be contained within strict boundaries.
Fonvizin’s negative characters, in my opinion, turned out to be more lively. They speak simple colloquial language, which sometimes even contains swear words. Prostakova's language is no different from the language of serfs; her speech contains many rude words and common expressions. In his speech, Tsyfirkin uses expressions that were used in military life, and Vralman speaks in broken Russian. In modern Fonvizin society, admiration for foreign countries and contempt for one’s Russian reigned. The education of the nobles was much better. Often the younger generation found itself in the hands of ignorant foreigners who, apart from backward views on science and bad qualities, could not instill anything in their charges. Well, what could the German coachman Vralman teach Mitrofanushka? What kind of knowledge could an over-aged child acquire to become an officer or official? In “The Minor,” Fonvizin expressed his protest against the Skotinins and Prostakovs and showed how young people cannot be educated, how spoiled they can grow up in an environment corrupted by the landowners’ power, obsequiously bowing to foreign culture. Comedy is instructive in nature and has great educational value. It makes you think about moral ideals, attitudes towards family, love for your fatherland, and raises questions of education and landowner tyranny.
The rich ideological and thematic content of the comedy “The Minor” is embodied in a masterfully developed artistic form. Fonvizin managed to create a coherent plan for the comedy, skillfully interweaving pictures of everyday life with revealing the views of the characters. With great care and breadth, Fonvizin described not only the main characters, but also secondary ones, like Eremeevna, teachers and even the tailor Trishka, revealing in each of them some new side of reality, without repeating itself anywhere. All the heroes of his comedy are drawn not by an indifferent contemplator of life, but by a citizen writer who clearly shows his attitude towards the people he portrays. He executes some with angry indignation and a caustic, killing laugh, treats others with cheerful mockery, and depicts others with great sympathy. Fonvizin showed himself to be a deep expert on the human heart and human character. He skillfully reveals spiritual life heroes, their attitude towards people, their actions. The same purpose is served in comedy by stage directions, that is, by the author's instructions to the actors. For example: “stammering out of timidity”, “with annoyance”, “frightened, with anger”, “delighted”, “impatiently”, “trembling and threatening”, etc. Such remarks were news in Russians dramatic works XVIII century.
In the artistic style of comedy, the struggle between classicism and realism is noticeable, that is, the desire for the most truthful depiction of life. The first is clearly on the side of realism.
This is manifested mainly in the depiction of characters, especially negative ones. They are typical representatives of their class, widely and diversifiedly shown. These are living people, and not the personification of any one quality, which was typical for the works of classicism. Even positive images are not devoid of vitality. And Prostakova, Skotinin, especially Mitrofanushka are so vital and typical that their names have become household names.
The rules of classicism are also violated in the very construction of comedy. These rules prohibited mixing the comic and dramatic, cheerful and sad in the play. In comedy it was supposed to correct morals with laughter. In “The Minor,” in addition to funny (comic), there are also dramatic scenes (Prostakova’s drama at the end of the work). Along with comic paintings, there are scenes that reveal the difficult sides of serf life. In addition, the comedy contains scenes that are only indirectly related to the main action (for example, the scene with Trishka and a number of others), but the author needed them for a broad and truthful sketch of everyday life.
The language of the comedy is so bright and apt that some expressions have passed from it into life like proverbs: “If I don’t want to study, I want to get married”; “Wealth is no help to a foolish son”, “Here are the fruits of evil”, etc.
This victory of realism in the most important area - in the depiction of a person - constitutes the most valuable side of Fonvizin, an artist of words. Truthfulness in the depiction of life is closely connected with the progressive views of Fonvizin, with his struggle against the main evils of his time, so vividly revealed by him in the comedy “The Minor.”
The important questions that Fonvizin posed and illuminated in the comedy “The Minor” determined its great social significance, primarily in his contemporary era. From the pages of the comedy, from the stage of the theater, the bold voice of a leading writer sounded, who angrily denounced the ulcers and shortcomings of life of that time, and called for a fight against them. The comedy painted true pictures of life; showed living people, good and bad, called on them to imitate the former and fight the latter. She enlightened consciousness, cultivated civic feelings, and called for action.
The significance of “The Minor” is also great in the history of the development of Russian drama. No wonder Pushkin called “The Minor” a “folk comedy.” Fonvizin's comedy has remained on the theater stage until the present day. The vitality of the images, the historically accurate depiction of people and life of the 18th century, the natural spoken language, the skillful construction of the plot - all this explains the keen interest that the comedy arouses in our days.
Fonvizin’s “Minor” is the founder of Russian (in Gorky’s words) “accusatory-realistic” comedy, socio-political comedy. Continuing this line, in the 19th century such wonderful comedies appeared as “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov and “The Inspector General” by Gogol.
37. The problem of education and its artistic expression in the comedy of D.I. Fonvizin "Minor"
In the comedy D.I. Fonvizin’s “Minor”, of course, criticism of the ignorant nobility, cruel serf-owners, corrupted by the decree of Catherine II “On the Liberty of the Nobility” (1765) comes to the fore. In connection with this topic, another topic is raised in the comedy - the problem of education. How can we correct the situation so that the younger generation, represented by Mitrofanushka and other lowlifes, becomes a true support for the state? Fonvizin saw only one way out - in educating youth in the spirit of educational ideals, in cultivating the ideas of goodness, honor, and duty in young minds.
Thus, the topic of education becomes one of the leading ones in comedy. It, in many of its aspects, develops throughout the work. So, first we see scenes of Mitrofanushka’s “upbringing”. This is also what is instilled and demonstrated to the underage by his parents, primarily by his mother, Mrs. Prostakova. She, accustomed to being guided by only one law - her desire, treats the serfs inhumanly, as if they were not people, but soulless objects. Prostakova considers it completely normal to stoop to curses and beatings, and for her this is the norm of communication not only with servants, but also with family members and her husband. Only for her son, whom she adores, does the heroine make an exception.
Prostakova does not understand that by communicating with others in this way, she first of all humiliates herself, is deprived of human dignity and respect. Fonvizin shows that the way of life that the Russian provincial nobility led, thanks, among other things, to state policy, is destructive and fundamentally wrong.
The playwright points out that Mitrofanushka adopted his mother’s manner of dealing with people; it is not for nothing that his name is translated as “revealing his mother.” We see how this hero mocks his nanny Eremeevna, other serfs, and neglects his parents:
"Mitrofan. And now I’m walking around like crazy. All night such rubbish was in my eyes.
Mrs. Prostakova. What rubbish, Mitrofanushka?
Mitrofan. Yes, either you, mother, or father.”
Mitrofan grows up as a spoiled, ignorant, lazy and selfish lump, thinking only about his own entertainment. He was not used to working either mentally or, of course, physically.
Out of necessity, Mitrofan’s mother hires teachers - according to the empress’s new decree, nobles must have an education, otherwise they will not be able to serve. And so, reluctantly, the young hero is engaged in “sciences”. It is important that he does not even think about the benefits of his own enlightenment. He seeks only one benefit in education, which is given to this hero with great difficulty.
And the teenager’s teachers are a match for him. Seminarist Kuteikin, retired sergeant Tsyfirkin, teacher Vralman - all of them have nothing to do with real knowledge. These pseudo-teachers give Mitrofan poor fragmentary knowledge, but he is not able to remember even that. Fonvizin paints comical pictures of the training of young Prostakov, but behind this laughter there is the bitter indignation of the playwright - such underage people will determine the future of Russia!
In contrast to such upbringing, Fonvizin presents his ideal of upbringing. We find its main postulates in the speeches of Starodum, who in many ways is the sounding board of the author himself. Starodum shares his experience and views on life with his niece Sophia - and this is presented in the play as another way of education: the transfer of life wisdom from the older generation to the younger.
From the conversation of these heroes, we learn that Sophia wants to earn “a good opinion of herself from worthy people.” She wants to live in such a way that, if possible, she will never offend anyone. Starodum, knowing this, instructs the girl on the “true path.” His life “laws” relate to the state, social activities nobleman: “degrees of nobility “are calculated by the number of deeds that the great gentleman has done for the fatherland”; “It is not the rich man who counts out money in order to hide it in a chest, but the one who counts out what he has in excess in order to help those who do not have what they need”; “An honest person must be a completely honest person.”
In addition, Starodum gives advice regarding “matters of the heart”, family life a well-behaved person: to have a friendship for her husband that would resemble love. It will be much stronger,” “it is necessary, my friend, that your husband obey reason, and you obey your husband.” And finally, as a final chord, the most important instruction: “...there is happiness greater than all this. This is to feel worthy of all the benefits that you can enjoy.”
I think that Starodum’s instructions fell on fertile soil. They will undoubtedly give positive results - Sophia and Milon will be guided by them and raise their children according to them.
Thus, the problem of education is central to Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” Here the playwright raises the question of the future of Russia, in connection with which the problem of education arises. The real state of affairs in this area does not suit the writer; he believes that the nobility is degrading, turning into an ignorant crowd of brutes and simpletons. This is largely due to the connivance of Catherine II.
Fonvizin believes that only education in the spirit educational ideas can save the situation. The bearers of these ideas in comedy are Starodum, Sophia, Milon, Pravdin.
“Nedorosl” is the first socio-political comedy on the Russian stage.
The artistic originality of "The Minor" is determined by the fact that the play combines the features of classicism and realism. Formally, Fonvizin remained within the framework of classicism: observance of the unity of place, time and action, the conventional division of characters into positive and negative, schematism in the depiction of positive ones, “speaking names”, features of reasoning in the image of Starodum, and so on. But, at the same time, he took a certain step towards realism. This is manifested in the accuracy of the reproduction of the provincial noble type, social relations in the fortress village, the fidelity of the recreation of the typical features of negative characters, and the life-like authenticity of the images. For the first time in the history of Russian drama, the love affair was relegated to the background and acquired secondary importance.
Fonvizin's comedy is a new phenomenon, because it is written on the material of Russian reality. The author innovatively approached the problem of the character of the hero, the first of the Russian playwrights sought to psychologize him, to individualize the speech of the characters (here it is worth adding examples from the text!).
In his work, Fonvizin introduces biographies of heroes, takes a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of education, denoting the trinity of this problem: family, teachers, environment, that is, the problem of education is posed here as a social problem. All this allows us to conclude that “The Minor” is a work of educational realism.
K.V. Pisarev: “Fonvizin sought to generalize and typify reality. In the negative images of comedy, he succeeded brilliantly.<...>The positive characters of "The Minor" clearly lack artistic and life-like persuasiveness.<...>The images he created were not clothed with living human flesh and, indeed, are a kind of mouthpiece for the “voice”, “concepts” and “way of thinking” of both Fonvizin himself and the best representatives of his time.”
Critics doubted Fonvizin’s art of constructing dramatic action and spoke about the presence of “extra” scenes in it that do not fit into the action, which must certainly be unified:
P. A. Vyazemsky: “All other [except Prostakova] persons are secondary; some of them are completely extraneous, others are only adjacent to the action. Of the forty phenomena, including several rather long ones, there is hardly a third in the entire drama, and even then short ones, that are part of the action itself.”
A. N. Veselovsky: “the ineptitude in the structure of the play, which forever remained the weak side of Fonvizin’s writing, despite the school of European models”; “A widely developed desire to speak not in images, but in rhetoric<...>gives rise to stagnation, freezing, and the viewer then recognizes Milo’s view of true fearlessness in war and in peaceful life, then the sovereigns hear the unvarnished truth from virtuous people, or Starodum’s thoughts on the education of women...”
The word, the initial constructive material of the drama, emphatically appears in “Minor” in dual functions: in one case, the pictorial, plastic-depictive function of the word (negative characters) is emphasized, creating a model of the world of physical flesh, in the other - its self-valuable and independent ideal-conceptual nature (positive characters), for which a human character is needed only as an intermediary, translating an ethereal thought into the matter of a spoken word. Thus, the specificity of his dramaturgical word, which is initially and fundamentally two-valued and ambiguous, moves to the center of the aesthetics and poetics of “Minor.”
punning nature of the word
A technique for destroying a phraseological unit that pits the traditionally conventional figurative against the direct literal meaning of a word or phrase.
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